


Red Lanterns

by Abstract_Thoughts



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: AU, Cliche, Danny's just an idiot, Horror, Mentions of Rape, Vampire AU, but its not
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 12:29:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7361542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abstract_Thoughts/pseuds/Abstract_Thoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[AU] Souh-End. Hotel Demortum. West Amity Graveyard. No matter how much the Fentons warn the people of Amity Park, they don't listen. Vampires kill. Vampires harm. Vampires are not human.<br/>How do you tell parents with such strong views that you are everything that they hate?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Red

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ayyyy waddup  
> I have awful writer’s block so here’s a cliché AU

Danny Fenton had heard the stories since before he could talk. He was used to being mocked, to the salt barriers around the house.  
That said, he was very keen on _not_ going to the South-End Park.  
“C’moooooooon, Danny!” Sam whined, “It’ll be cool!”  
Danny snorted, “Yeah, and _fatal_ ,”  
Tucker leaned on his friend’s shoulder, “Scared?”  
“No,” Danny shoved him off, “Just sensible,”  
“C’mon!”  
Danny grit his teeth.  
_Dani disappeared there!_ He argued with himself _, Maybe I can find her and get revenge!_  
_That’s not right._ He countered _, But... Dani...._  
“Alright, fine,”  
...  
The night sky’s glitter was obscured by smog and street lights, the latter of which cast a dull, eerie glow on the edges of the park. The park itself was built around the city reservoir, a huge lake that the hydroelectric dam spat out.  
The trio walked across the dam, Sam and Tucker making terrible puns as they went.  
“It’s a dam shame that my parents funded this,” Sam laughed.  
“Yeah,” Tucker snickered, “It’s a dam shame that habitats were destroyed.”  
“Guys...” Danny looked across the park, “You think Dani’s out here somewhere?”  
“Danny...” Sam leaned against the railing, Tucker following suit, “If she is, I think she’d be...”  
“Dead...” Danny whispered.  
“We shouldn’t have come here.” Tucker put his arm around Danny’s shoulders, Sam following, “Sorry, dude.”  
“You should be.”  
The voice made the three of them leap, whirling around. Vlad Masters stares them in the face.  
“... Are you going to tell my parents...?” Danny asked.  
His godfather laughed heartily, “No, Daniel, I won’t. Your parents and I got into trouble, too. Come,” he lead the three off the dam, “I’ll take you three home.”  
...  
Sam and Tucker safely home, Danny walked with Vlad, twiddling his thumbs.  
“Might I ask why you were in South-End at midnight, Daniel?” Vlad asked.  
“... Well, Sam and Tucker wanted to see if the rumours about the disappearing kids and blood-sucked bodied were true... And all I could think of was Dani...”  
Vlad stopped, and looked ahead, eyes steady.  
“Um, Mr. Masters?” Danny awkwardly stopped walking, “Why are you-?”  
“I’m so sorry, Daniel.” Vlad interrupted.  
“Sorry? For what?”  
“This.”  
Vlad’s eyes glowed like coals, like the thick liquid of life in the veins of a boy- and his lips stretched into a grin.  
Danny whirled around, scrambling like a chicken without a head.  
Vlad grabbed him, digging his tiny-knife-like fingers into Danny’s skin, throwing him backwards into a wall.  
Danny’s head exploded with a throbbing thump-thump, and Vlad kneeled in front of him, and sitting like a cat, he grabbed wounded arm.  
“Such young, healthy blood...” Vlad ran his fingers along Danny’s wound, liking his blood off of them like he had snuck a fingertip of icing off of a cake, “So... Rich...” He licked up Danny’s arm.  
“Stop...” Vlad smiled at Danny, sharp teeth showing. _Oh god- oh fuck, Mom and Dad have some sense-_  
Vlad chuckled, “’Stop’?” he spoke as if to an ignorant child, “Oh, Daniel... I haven’t had a meal this wonderful since Danielle.”  
“No...!” Danny wanted to hit him, but his head ached and his limbs felt numb. Was it colder...?  
Vlad smiled, and positioned his body so that _he was straddling Danny_.  
Oh _fuck_.  
Danny squeezed his eyes shut, tears spilling over. He was an idiot. Vlad wasn’t a vampire- stupid, stupid, stupid-, he was about to be raped and murdered. Just like Dani probably was.  
Vlad put his lips to Danny’s neck- and bit.  
Danny screamed in pain, but Vlad put a hand over his mouth.  
“You make this difficult, Daniel.” Vlad pulled duct tape from his coat pocket, and placed it over Danny's sobbing mouth.  
Vlad resumed his task, and Danny watched the sky fade away as Vlad slowly but surely knocked him out.  
...  
**Danny boi are u so sure that’s what’s happening**  
**But yes pls review**


	2. Aftermath

Danny came to consciousness from a sharp _slap_ to the face.  
Sam was in hysterics beside him, and Tucker was holding her back.  
“Hu- waizit?” Danny managed to gurgle out.  
“HE’S ALIVE!” Tucker and Sam threw themselves onto Danny, both equal sobbing messes.  
But all that Danny could see, all that he could hear, was Sam’s carotid artery, and the steady thump-thump of her heart.  
He wanted to hurt her... tear her to pieces! _Blood- blood- BLOO-_  
“-and we were so worried!”  
Sam and Tucker had pulled back, looking at him for a response.  
But to what?  
The only thing that came to mind was-  
Danny choked out a sob.  
“Danny-!”  
“No-!” Danny pushed them both away, “Do- don’t _touch_ me!” He put his face in his hands, “I’ve been touched enough,”  
“Danny...”  
“What happened?”  
Danny tearfully relayed the story, and it felt good that his friends were right beside him, “... but there’s no point in telling anyone. I passed out, so I don’t even... I don’t even want to....”  
Sam shook her head, “There’s always a point. You do remember him saying that- erm- Dani...”  
Danny lowered his eyes, “And you think anyone would believe me without proof?”  
“Then we find proof,” Tucker said matter-of-factly. At his friends’ doubtful expressions, he added, “Just hear me out. We can break into Vlad’s place while he’s doing mayor stuff, and try to find someone proof.”  
Danny kept his eyes to the ground. Some part of him loved this idea- to tear Vlad apart from the ground up-, and it was a part that terrified Danny. He didn’t want to hurt Vlad- he wanted to kill him. To tear him to _pieces_ , make him feel the pain that he inflicted on Danny.  
_But-_ the reasonable part of him thought, _even if I don’t want to do that, Dani deserves justice. He won’t get to anyone else this way._  
“I think it’s a good idea,” Danny said, raising his head to look at his friends.  
“Are you sure?” Sam asked, “Danny, we just found you half-conscious in an alley-way.”  
Danny nodded, “Maybe, but I feel more alive than ever. I- I feel like I could tear a person limb from limb- a-and I could make them _scream_ in ways that they never thought they could-!” the thought was exciting, a-and-  
And Sam and Tucker were people.  
He looked up at his friends. At their warm skin and the thumping in their necks. At their rising and falling chests. At- at-  
 _They’re your friends you idiot_!  
Sam and Tucker stared back, and looked scared.  
“I- sorry- I don’t know what-“  
“It’s alright, man,”  
“Yeah. ‘course it is....”  
Sam shifted her weight, “Should we set a date to break-and-enter?”  
“No,” Danny spat, “We go now,”

 

The trio watched Vlad leave his front door and make his way down his front path.  
The Mayor of Amity Park hummed to himself as he walked, as if last night had never happened.  
Danny’s fists clenched at his side, that want- that _NEED_ \- filling him to the brim.  
And Vlad climbed into the car, and drove off.  
As soon as they were sure Vlad wasn’t coming back, the three scrambled to the basement window farthest from the street.  
Sam grinned, lifting her steel-soled boots and kicking the window in. When no alarm sounded, Sam kicked the rest of the glass out, and the three scrambled inside.

Even the basement of Vlad’s manor was elaborate. Well-finished with pale white tiles conflicted with the dark walls, along which was a mural that contained so much blood, Danny couldn’t look.  
The trio moved forward slowly, Tucker’s phone flashlight leading the way. In all the time that Danny had known Vlad- since birth, that is- he had never been allowed in the basement, told that monsters stalked the halls, and would eat little boys alive.  
As the air conditioning let out a breath, cold air shooting through the old tunnels, the wail-like sounds made him think that might be true.  
“Heeelllpppp....!”  
The trio turned towards the voice, and Danny looked at his friends.  
“Do you think...?” Tucker asked, turning his flashlight in the direction of the wail.  
“I do.” Danny responded, and began moving down the hall.  
“Danny, wait-!”  
But he didn’t.  
_Dani- Dani- Dani- It has to be- please..._  
Danny turned a corner, and came to a small cell-block, and his blood turned cold.  
“Holy _shit_ ,” Sam breathed as she and Tucker caught up.  
In the cell in front of him was Danielle Fenton, pale as the dead, chained to the wall by her blistered and burnt wrists.


	3. What He Is

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops look longer than I thought I would

“Tucker, light up a bit,”  
Sam was, after having picked the lock to the cell door, was working on the second cuff.  
Danny held his cousin’s hand, which shook in his own.  
“You guys _can’t_...” she said for the fourth time, “You don’t know what he is,”  
Sam simply continued, blowing her now in her face bangs to the side.  
There was the decisive click, and Danny reached to pull the fucking thing off-  
 _Sizzle- hissss_ -  
Had... Had that sound just come from his mouth?  
That didn’t matter. His hand felt like he’d just touched a lit stove top, and the skin blistered.  
Dani looked terrified, “He got you too,” she whispered, their shared ice-blue eyes staring into each other.  
Danny simply nodded slowly, and Sam pulled the cuffs off of Dani’s wrists. Danny picked her up bridal-style, and they made their way out of the basement and back into the sun.

“We can’t go back to FentonWorks,” Dani declared as the familiar building came into view. Her ice-blue eyes seemed to shake with the rest of her body, as if she was experiencing her own personal earthquake.  
“Um,” Tucker interjected, “You’re considered a missing person. At this point, they’re almost considering you dead. Don’t you want to go home?”  
Dani’s personal earthquake intensified, “Aunt M and Uncle Jack will not make that place a home for me when they find out,”  
Danny felt a prickly sensation down his neck, as if eyes watched him from all angles, “Wh- what do you mean?  
“Yeah,” San put a hand on Dani’s arm, “When they find out what?”  
“What I am,” Dani’s eyes were fixed on the road ahead of them, “What Danny is... All because of _him_ ,”  
The pickling was everywhere. Were there bugs on his skin? The thumping of his friends’ heartbeats was a roar in his ears.   
“Because of Vlad?”  
Hearts everywhere. _People_ everywhere.  
“Who else?”  
Blood everywhere. He wanted it all over his hands-  
“Point taken. But what ‘are’ you specifically?”  
-all over his face, down his throat-  
“Vampires,”  
- _screams_! He wanted _screams_ -  
“Tha- that’s ridiculous!”  
“Sam’s right. Danny’s parents have dug themselves into your brain in a few years, huh?”  
 _-HE NEEDED FOOD_!  
Danny Fenton took off like a bolt of lighting, his eyes set on small child lingering behind their mother.

Dani took off after her cousin, wondering how long she could stay conscious- wondering how long she wanted to.  
Danny had backed the child into an alley, Dani’s gut twisting at the sight.  
The older teen was hunched over the child like something out of a horror movie- his back bent like a slinky, fingers curled, and eyes bright green.  
 _Your voice could be a weapon, Danielle. But you could never use it on someone you care about. You are not strong enough._  
“We’ll see about that.” Dani grumbled, before straightening her posture. The raven-haired child narrowed her eyes and growled, “ _Back_.”  
Danny followed the command, backing up from the child.   
But he wasn’t going to stop until he had something.  
Danny turned his head like an owl, the _snap! crack! pop!_ of bones and tendons threatened to shatter Dani’s fragile grip on consciousness.  
Danny grinned, “Are you trying to get my meal from me?” he demanded, green eyes bearing into Dani’s soulless interior.  
“No,” Dani replied bluntly, “I’m trying to make sure my cousin doesn’t kill someone,”   
She leaped at Danny, landing behind the child. She grabbed them, leaping over her cousin, and tossing the child forward. Danny grabbed her back, shirt and skin alike tearing. She screeched in pain, and saw with relief that the child was leaving.  
As Dani pulled herself to her feet, her eyes glowed the same green as she faced her cousin.  
“You want to do this the hard way?” she demanded, “ _Fine_ ,” _crack, crack_ went her knuckles, and her body screamed for relief, but her mouth kept moving, her only thought on keeping people safe, “Let’s do this the hard way.”  
And the now-eternal children threw themselves at each other.

 


End file.
